Colorful Things
by Waiwa Ayas
Summary: In which I take the very overused idea of Sasuke having a childhood friend and actually try to make a readable and interesting story out of it. Will involve many characters from the Naruto universe. This is the story of a lifetime.
1. Golden Butterflies

**"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."**

**-Nathaniel Hawthorne**

They were called Nozomi butterflies because they were wishing butterflies. The golden stripes on their wings were said to hold the wishes which they would carry to Heaven. In the summertime, when they descended upon the valley, children who were usually loud and rambunctious would become quiet and still as they tried to entice the butterflies into landing upon their hands with little cups of sugar-water, held out like offerings in exchange for a wish. The legend told that each person ought to make only one wish in their lifetime, for the strength of the wish would be diluted with each additional wish that was made. Children chose very carefully the single wish that they would make, before raising up their tiny hands and sending the butterflies back to Heaven. At night, they dreamed of their wishes rising up like golden dust inside each of the butterflies' vibrant stripes, crowning above the clouds, becoming light that would fall back down on them and make their wishes come true.

In the middle of the summertime of that year the butterflies returned, as they always did. They descended upon the town like a cloud, and the eyes of everyone who stepped outside were struck by constant flashes of golden wings. The butterflies clustered together, usually around still water or on the leaves of bushes. Nobody minded their presence, even though they had to walk more carefully in the streets and listen to the beating of tiny wings in the middle of the night. The Nozomi butterflies were not going to stay. They were just passing through. In a few days, they would gather themselves into a cloud again and rise up out of the town, heading for the green hills of the further countryside. The whole town would step out of doors to watch the gigantic blanket of butterflies form above the houses as all around them, more and more of the little creatures left their temporary resting places and drifted upward to join the flock. They looked like human souls flying up to Heaven. The air would actually hum with the beating of wings, a hum that sounded like the beginning of a song. _How beautiful,_ people would say. _How beautiful._ And the hearts of all those in the town would feel a little melancholy after the butterflies had gone.

The blanket of butterflies fell upon the hilltops outside the town first, as these were closer to the open air. People lived on the slopes of these hills, their houses tucked into the thrushes of forest all around them. In the middle of a summer afternoon, these green and brown spaces were suddenly filled with gold, and cries of excitement could be heard from almost every house. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the wave of gold collide with the earth. After this, it was quiet. No one wanted to scare the butterflies away. The only sound that could be heard was the beating of wings.

In a clearing that overlooked the town, a little girl was playing with her brand-new brother. She had carried him here through the drifting cascades of gold, his first time ever seeing the butterflies. It felt like her first time as well. She was six years old, but all the years before this seemed to be lost in the fog of early childhood, a time before concrete memory. This year, though, it was different. She had a feeling that she was going to remember the butterflies' visit this year. It was like walking through a firestorm that didn't burn, or seeing stars falling in the middle of the day. It made her heart burn with a fiery kind of gladness to be alive.

Shono was lying upon his blanket in the grass, laughing and reaching for the butterflies. His older sister was watching vigilantly to make sure that he did not actually grab one out of the air. Shono was only two months old, and he did not understand just how gently a butterfly needed to be handled. They were so fragile. The little girl was gazing out at the village and pondering this when suddenly, a piece of golden sunlight dropped straight into her lap. She glanced down and beheld the creature as it flapped around a little, coming to rest upon her right knee and draping its wings on either side of its tiny abdomen. She couldn't remember if a butterfly had ever landed on her before. She was almost afraid to move. Very slowly, she reached into her shoulder bag and drew out a bottle of water into which she had stirred some sugar before leaving the house. Even more carefully, she poured a small amount into the bottle's cap and held it near the butterfly. She looked up as Shono began to gurgle in excitement, and smiled indulgently at him. When she looked back down again, the butterfly had climbed onto her hand and was uncurling a tiny, straw-like appendage from below its black eyes. It was so light that she couldn't even feel it. Slowly, she lifted her hand nearer to her face, examining her guest from all angles as it began to drink the sugar-water. Its golden stripes were surrounded by black, which made them stand out all the more. Its legs were positively infinitesimal. It was like gossamer that had been made (just barely) solid. The girl noticed that one of its wings had a slight nick out of the tip, apparently nothing which prevented it from flying. She grinned in pleasurable delight as the butterfly continued to indulge itself in the sugar-water, fanning its wings lazily. She was glad that it trusted her enough to perch on her hand. From far away, she heard the sound of wind chimes ringing, intermingling with the humming of thousands and thousands of wings of tiny creatures that could fly.

The girl did not make a wish. She did not know that her small visitor was a wishing butterfly. She had always lived outside of town, in the hill community, and as such, the stories which she'd learned about the world were not exactly the same as those told to the town children. Even if she had known, there wasn't anything that she needed to wish for. She was young and happy and strong. She had never known sickness or death in her short life. She had a mother, a father, and a new baby brother. She lived in a stable home, filled with plants and bread and surrounded by the homes of friends and affable neighbors. She had whole acres of forest in which to spend her childhood playing and exploring. She was a little poor, but she did not know this. To her, work was simply a natural part of life that offered more opportunities to explore. She liked running around the woods in search of kindling for her mother's bread ovens, and trekking into town to deliver the loaves to her mother's customers. The unexpected visit of the butterfly was just one more blessing in her charmed life. She needed nothing.

The butterfly stayed on her hand after it had finished drinking, sunning itself atop her knuckles. She held her hand very still so as not to disturb it, quietly admiring the tenacious beauty of the fragile creature. Eventually, a rush of butterflies emerged from the woods behind her and began to drift downward toward the town. She could see the people on the streets below, staring into the sky and waiting for their arrival. Her butterfly visitor roused itself, apparently intending to join its friends. The little girl lifted her hand up to the sky and watched as the creature launched itself from her finger and soared into the crowd of its fellows. She soon lost sight of it amidst the flashing stripes of gold as they descended toward the houses and shops below. She waved enthusiastically as they went. It was someone else's turn to enjoy the presence of the pretty butterfly. Even so, she would remember this summer day as her own.

Down in the town, the arrival of the butterflies delighted every child except one. A little boy was sitting on the edge of his back porch, staring gloomily at the beating golden wings of the butterflies dancing over his small artisan's pond. His legs were curled up to his chest. For him, the melancholy had already arrived. A slight sound on the porch behind him belied the arrival of his mother. The soft-faced young woman pushed open the sliding door with care, coming to sit beside her young son on the wooden edge. Her face was full of maternal compassion and understanding. "What's wrong, little dove? Aren't you happy that the butterflies are here?"

The boy sighed, kicking his legs back and fourth languidly. "Don't call me little dove, Mom. I'm not a dove. My hair is _black._ And no, I'm not happy. It's not fun even with the butterflies, because the other kids won't play with me again."

"Why won't they?"

"I don't know. They just won't. I even said that they could pick the game this time, but they said no. And then they went off to play without me." He curled his knees up tighter to his chest and squeezed them with his little hands, his face a mark of childish distress. The woman laid a hand upon his back comfortingly. This had been a reoccurring problem with her youngest son ever since he had grown old enough to socialize with children his own age. He was not a bad child. He did not hit the other children, or steal their toys, or whine constantly. He was simply his father in miniature. He was intense and passionate, and the other children didn't know how to deal with him. He didn't like to compromise, and he had an aggressive side, although it was not rooted in mean-spiritedness. However, children at this age really couldn't tell the difference. She did her best to instruct him in social mannerisms, but she couldn't change his core nature, and incidents like this were all too common. It pulled at her heart, because she knew that her son really didn't understand why he was constantly ostracized by his peers. His older brother spent time with him when he could, but he was busy- becoming a man all too quickly. At some point, her little boys' lives seemed to have flown right out of her hands.

The woman patted the child's head and offered little platitudes of comfort, to which he nodded but did not believe. He didn't understand what was wrong with him that he couldn't play with the others. Whatever it was, it shamed him, but he had long since made up his mind that he would never cry. Unexpectedly, the front bell rang. He bit his lip as his mother stood up and disappeared back through the sliding door to answer it. The voice of his older neighbor wafted down the front hall. Not wanting to be seen sitting here alone, the little boy stepped off the porch and slouched over to a bush beside the pond, resuming his folded-up position on the ground. The butterflies were all fluttering around in groups of two or three, merrily chasing each other as they skimmed over the water's surface. Even the butterflies had companions. The little boy turned his head away and closed his eyes, reducing his world to darkness and silence. After a while, he cracked them open again, and was surprised to find a single butterfly hanging on to a leaf near his face, like a golden drop of sun. He stared hard at it- it looked like the others in every way, except that this one had a tiny piece missing from one of its wings. He had never had a butterfly come this close to him before. Suddenly an idea bloomed in his young mind. Bringing his hand up underneath the butterfly, he gently separated it from the leaf and balanced it upon his hand, barely breathing. Curiously, he eyed the stripes that were supposed to contain the wishes which the butterfly would carry back to Heaven. Could there be room for one more? Blushing, he glanced around shyly- he didn't want anyone to know he was doing this, not even his mother. Then he leaned his face in very close to the butterfly's ponderous black eyes, and whispered intensely, "I want a friend. That's my wish. A real friend. A _good_ friend. Can you give me that?"

The butterfly didn't answer, only fanning its wings out lazily in the breeze. The little boy bit his lip. "Please," he added for good measure, not sure if politeness would increase his chances of having his wish come true. From across the yard, he heard his mother calling his name. He started upward and signaled for her to be quiet. When he looked back down again, the butterfly was gone. He spotted it flying languidly away, flapping occasionally to keep itself airborne. He stared after it with wide eyes, wondering if he had done it right or if he ought to have done it at all. A friend was what he wanted more than anything in the world, but perhaps he should have offered the butterfly something in return- sugar-water, most likely. Regardless, it was too late now to change anything. You only got one wish. The little boy trudged over to his back porch, staring at the ground. His mother patted him on the head again.

"What were you doing, little dove?"

"_Mom,_" he groaned. "_Don't_ call me little dove. And I….I made a wish on a butterfly." He wasn't sure why he had told her. Probably simply for reassurance's sake. "Do you think it will come true?"

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, smiling in endearment, "but it could."

"What should I do if it does?" he asked, the thought just now occurring to him.

The young woman laughed. "You should enjoy it, of course! And also, take care of it. That's the one rule about wishes. If you're lucky enough to have your wish come true, you have to show real appreciation for it. Otherwise it will go back up to Heaven."

"All right," he murmured, wondering how exactly this rule would apply in regards to his particular wish. He had essentially wished for a person. And a person couldn't just turn into wishing dust and float back up to Heaven. Still….

"I will. I will take care of it," he promised the air, and the butterfly, if it was listening. Slowly, he took his mother's hand and followed her back inside, hearing the beating of wings creating a great hum throughout the land all around him, like a thousand voices poised to begin a choral song. The entire land was listening to the butterflies sing.

**Nozomi= wish/hope/desire**


	2. Red Paper Lanterns

**"And for a moment the whole world**

**revolved around one boy**

**and one girl."**

**-Collin Raye, 'One Boy, One Girl'**

In a way, the life of Uchiha Memori first began on the day she met her best friend.

The day was balmy and warm, occasional currents of breeze running through the tightly packed streets of Senbaku, providing relief for the large crowds strolling through them. It did not matter what day in particular, because Memori was six and took no notice of the days in number. What she did remember was that it was summer, bright and hot and crowded, as summers in the Uchiha section of the Senbaku outpost always were. The butterflies had left just that morning, and most of the people who had gathered to watch them funnel up into the sky had chosen to stay out in the streets, which they could now walk along freely. The roads and bushes were no longer golden. The colors of the normal world had returned. She remembered that she had been one of many children ambling about on a market street, savoring the smells of comfort, of food and home. The stores on either side of the street had their doors flung wide open, inviting both the breeze and the passerby inside. The market vendors who had set up their canopies on the edge of the street had left the sidewalks clear so as to allow pedestrians to reach the stores. However, they did all that they could to draw the crowded passerby to their stalls instead, shouting and waving their merchandise over the heads of the crowd, shouting at no one in particular, unless someone happened to look their way. It seemed to Memori that they sold everything a person could possibly want. Short though she was, the small girl could spy her share of jewelry, trinkets, seafood, fruits, vegetables, breads, decorated boxes, articles of clothing, medicines, charms, incense, religious symbols, and everything else being waved above the crowd by disembodied hands. Their voices edged in and out of each other as the small girl made her way down the sidewalk, keeping close to the wall so as to be out of the bigger people's way. She was glad that the vendors were not shouting at her, for she was rather shy of strange, bigger people, and she did not know what she would have replied. But Memori was small and unnoticeable, just a dirty-skinned girl swathed in a pair of purple pants and tiny blue nin-sandals. She carried her shirt slung over her shoulder, but then, almost nobody was wearing a full shirt in the day's heat. Her hair, which was thick and deep black, was braided at the back of her head, waving through the air as she walked as if searching for something to be anchored to. Her eyes were dark and her face was small and thoughtful. The crest of the Uchiha clan, a red-topped fan, was emblazoned on the back of the shirt she was not wearing. She saw many people with the same symbol on their clothes as she slithered along the wall, and this made her happy. In time, Memori would learn to feel comfortable around all sorts of people, but at the moment she was only six, and the haven of the Uchiha clan was the only home she'd ever known.

In truth, the young girl did not have a particular place that she was heading to. She had previously been engaged in a game of kickball which a whole team of village children who tended to hang around the Otomiya family's vacant grassy lot; however, it had broken up after an hour due to the fact that it was simply too hot to play. Hence her dirtiness as she crossed the street, pausing for a moment to allow an old man and his donkey cart to clatter on through. She gained the curb again in a much less crowded area, for there were no market stalls on this street. Finally able to walk in the middle of the sidewalk, Memori glanced up cheerfully and was quite surprised when a pair of eyes, from a distance, met her own.

They belonged to a little boy standing a ways away under the clear blue sky, holding a large bag to his side. He was on the opposite side of the street a block away, where the sidewalk ran out. He stood on the bare and dirty ground without shoes, wearing a dark pair of shorts and a long-sleeve shirt, despite the weather. His hair was dark too, pitch-black and unruly, sticking up in tufts at the back of his head. It blew in the wind as he stared across the road at Memori, rippling like waves on an ocean. For some reason, Memori found herself entranced by his appearance- a red paper lantern was billowing from a wooden pole just above the boy's head. The sharp contrast between the blue of the sky, the utter redness of the lantern, and the complete darkness of this living creature underneath them both seemed to Memori a great work of art just waiting to be painted. She walked closer, enjoying the sight of him, who did not move. The way his black eyes stared at her, one might have thought the two had an arrangement to meet here. But Memori had never seen him before, though he looked to be about her age, and this intrigued her young mind all the more. Closer and closer the two children walked, until they were exactly parallel to each other, and only the street separated them. Then Memori stopped and tried to decide what to do. She could keep walking on from this boy who was obviously going in the opposite direction, or she could cross the street and maybe talk to him. The fact that he had not looked away yet encouraged her, and Memori tilted her head to the boy, as if to ask a question. His imitation of the movement clarified her answer.

Happily, Memori skipped across the dirt-packed street and planted herself in front of the dark-haired boy, looking him straight in the eyes, black on black. _We are the same height,_ she thought.

Somewhere over both of their heads, a wind chime rang out as a gust of air flowed through the street.

**Discrepancies= I know all about 'em. They're there for a reason. :)**


	3. Gleaming Metal

**"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" "**

**-Eve Merriam**

Memori followed her new friend Sasuke home to his place on the end of a quiet, tidy street. The two children held hands as they crossed the street, even though there was no traffic, and proceeded onto the porch of a building that was constructed simply, yet elegantly. The building itself was made of adobe bricks that were painted white and red, and surrounding it were spacious wooden walkways, buttressed in by the occasional miniature grove of bamboo. By this point, Memori had put her shirt back on. She was understandably nervous as she approached the door, but Sasuke took off his shoes and stepped inside with great ease. Following suit, Memori found herself in a lightly painted foyer, leading out into a kitchen and a living room. Sasuke, proud to have someone to show his home to, pointed to each and said in a whisper, "In there's where my mom cooks food for us. We eat at the table, and we get ready for the day right in here, where we're standing. Over there's where we play board games and hear stories from my mother and listen to my father talk about what we must do. Sometimes he brings his friends over and they go in there, but it's always nighttime then and we're not allowed in. I don't think he's here now, but just in case, let's whisper. Come on, I'll show you my bedroom!"

The two children tiptoed off, Memori clutching Sasuke's arm and wondering what kind of man this father of Sasuke was, that one had to stay out of his affairs and whisper while he was at home. Her own father, the only full-grown man she'd ever known, was the type of person who always let his children know what he was doing, who would take Memori and her brother up on his knees (even though Shono was only two months old and therefore could not understand anything,) and explain to her excited queries the exact thing that he was going to do, whether it was going fishing, building a birdhouse, or leaving for an assignment. She could roar into her house with a pack of her hilltop playmates at any time, and if her father or mother were at home, they would waste no time in greeting everyone, picking them up to see if they had grown, and giving them food. So it was rather disconcerting for her to be told to be quiet and to tiptoe, especially in a house that looked so nice. She was quite pleased, however, when she got to Sasuke's room. The walls were painted a rich, dark blue, and there was a bookshelf full of beginning books over near the window. Handsome and well-made toys filled the top of his dresser. The room was very clean, the bed well-tucked in and the pillow fluffed. The most wonderful thing yet, however, was right above their heads; a miniature model of the sun and all of the planets around it, held aloft by nearly invisible strings. It really did seem as through the solar system was up there, floating. Memori gaped at it for a full minute before allowing herself to be led around to look at everything else.

"Where did you get that?" she asked excitedly, climbing onto the bed to get a better look. Sasuke shrugged, vaulting up there with her.

"One of my aunts gave it to me, I guess. When I was a baby, so I don't remember. I think it's just some sort of mobile, I don't know why it's still up there. I'm not a baby anymore."

"It's not a mobile! It's the solar system! Don't you know that, silly?" Memori laughed, jumping up and down to try to touch the sun. "That yellow one's the sun, see, and all of those other ones are called planets, and they go around the sun. There's us, see? That blue and green one is earth, where we live!"

Sasuke was looking at the model with great skepticism, as if it was beyond him to believe such an outlandish story. "Are you sure? They're just colored balls."

"My father told me all about it. He has a telescope, and he showed me! If you look right up into the sky at night with a telescope, you can see some of the other planets. They're very far away." Memori informed him, remembering the little pinpricks of colored light that her father had said were Mercury and Venus and Mars.

Sasuke still looked dubious, but he shrugged again and said, "Anyway, whatever it is, wanna see the coolest stuff I've got?"

The young girl found it hard to imagine something cooler than a miniature model of the solar system, but she obediently jumped off the bed, relishing the loud bang that she made, and trotted over to where her dark-haired companion was removing the drape from the front of an arrangement of shelves nailed into the opposite wall. His eyes were bright and excited. "We have the curtain there so nobody can look through my window and see what's in here. If they saw them, they might try to steal them." With a flourish, he pulled the drape away, and Memori's eyes stung with the sudden light that bounced off of the metal objects on the shelves. There were three shelves, rather large, and all lined from top to bottom with weapons.

Memori had seen weapons before; her father had lots of them, after all, and she'd seen them plenty of times in the shops and stalls of the market while on her usual wanderings. However, she'd always been told that they were not for children. She gaped at Sasuke, who took his new friend's shock for impression and grinned in a proud manner. "And I know how to use some of them really well, too. I practice almost all the time in my yard. We should go try it in a bit."

"Who gives them to you?" Memori asked, swallowing nervously and eyeing the shiny metal.

Sasuke puffed out his chest. "My father does. It's because I'm going to be a strong shinobi one day, so I have to practice. I'm best at this." he said, lifting a straight, sharp one out by the braided handle.

"Be careful!"

He looked up at her strangely. "What? It's just the handle, the handle isn't going to cut me. See?" he ran his finger up and down the shiny metal. "Haven't you ever held one before?"

"What is it?"

"You don't _know?_" the dark-haired boy asked in astonishment. "This is a kunai. It's the most basic weapon for any shinobi worth anything. All the clans use this for fighting."

"My mother says that children don't need to have weapons," replied Memori, sticking her lip out in a small pout. She couldn't help feeling that Sasuke was doing something wrong, even though his own father had given him the weapons and told him to practice with them. _Her_ father would never give her weapons. She knew that they were for hurting, and she was, as her father had dubbed her, "Much too good to do that." She had always thought of this as a fortunate thing.

"But how are you going to start to practice for the Academy? You're from the Uchiha clan, right?" Sasuke protested, reaching out and turning her around so he could see the fan emblazoned on the back of her shirt. "Yes. I am too, see? Don't you want to be a strong shinobi when you grow up? Don't you want to fight battles?"

"My mother says that I have plenty of time to decide what I want to be."

The young boy leaned forward, staring hard at the girl as if determined to figure out why she was so strange. "Well, my father says that our clan is the strongest in the world, and that all of us in it are natural warriors."

"But-"

"Here, take this. Hold it," he commanded, reaching onto the shelf and pulling another kunai out of his rather large collection. With his other hand he took Memori's smaller one, using his own fingers to curl open hers, pressing the handle into her palm, and squeezing them shut again. The wide-eyed girl let out a wail, the emotions behind which she did not completely understand, as the cold metal touched her palm. To her immense surprise, nothing bad or painful occurred, and she was left staring down at the weapon now clenched in her hand as if the hand belonged to a stranger. Sasuke, however, seemed pleased. "See, there! Nothing to be such a baby about! Do you see how it's just right, how it _fits_ in your hand?"

She did see that. Her whole arm felt heavy, as if she'd gained a new, more burdensome hand.

"I can use this and this, too," he continued, indicating happily to some objects on the shelves whose names she also did not know. "It took me two whole months to hit the target with this! And this one I'm going to start on after-"

"Sasuke!" came a voice from the hallway, making both children jump. The voice was scolding, yet good-natured, and the next moment a very pretty woman swung around the doorframe into Sasuke's bedroom. She had long, dark hair and a kind face, and the majority of her body was covered in a thick apron. Memori looked at her with wide eyes; she could only be her host's mother. Not looking abashed at all, Sasuke smiled widely and exclaimed, "Mother, this is Memori! I met her on the street while I was going to the market. She's my new friend, so I brought her home."

The woman smiled at the little girl, and gave her son's head a gentle nudge. "What have I told you about warning me when you bring people home so I can make sure we have food ready?" She said nothing about the weapons that they were both holding.

Sasuke still did not look abashed. "But mother, she's the first one! I'll remember next time. Can you make us food now, please? We want to eat before I show Memori the outside."

The woman laughed at his plaintive face, and ushered them out of the bedroom. "Come right this way, and drop the kunais. You can show your little friend your weapons collection later."

"It's not a collection, mother," the boy grumbled, taking Memori's hand and leading her back into the kitchen. "Oh, and-" his dark eyes darted around- "is father home?"

"No dear. Your father is working."

"Okay. We can talk normally now," the small boy informed his guest, collapsing onto a pouf at the end of the table. Memori shyly followed suit. Sasuke's mother bustled around the kitchen, beginning to boil some rice, as her son leaned forward and asked, "So, where do you live? And how old are you?"

"Up that hill." She pointed out the window toward Kuuki, visible from anywhere in the lower-lying community. "Not the house at the very top, but one of the houses along that little ridge there. I can't tell which one from this far. And I'm six years old. You too?"

"Yes. I like that hill! We go there to train sometimes, my father and me." Sasuke told her excitedly, kicking his legs back and fourth underneath the table. "Is it fun to live on a hill? Do you have to walk a long time to get down here?"

"Not really, um, I mean, I don't really have to walk a long time to get here. It's only the hill that has wilderness. As soon as you get down from it, you're in the village. But I like living up there. There are lots of places to play without grown-ups around, and we can get lots of the food we need just by growing or hunting it. We don't have to come into the market often, but when we need to buy things, my mother sends me-" Memori blushed proudly, "because I'm big enough. But not today. Today I was just playing kickball with the town kids."

"Do you have any brothers or sisters? How big are they? Is your father a shinobi too?" Sasuke eagerly continued his interrogation of his new friend while his mother began to cut up pieces of a mango, tilting her head to listen as she worked.

"I have one brother, his name is Shono. He was only born two months ago, so he's really tiny. I can't really do fun things with him yet, since he can't even crawl, but I help my mother take care of him. My mother isn't a shinobi." Memori shook her dark-topped head. "She's from our clan, but she was trained as a baker. She runs a shop out of our house, where people from all over the village come to order breads and pick them up when she's done. I help her there, too. My father is a shinobi from our clan. He goes on assignments a lot, but I like it better when he's home. I don't have to whisper around him." She wasn't really sure why she'd said this last bit, but this was the only way that she could think to describe the difference between Sasuke's mysterious father and her own.

Sasuke's mother laughed, bending down gracefully and placing a bowl of mango slices in front of both children. "Chew on these until the rice finishes cooking." she suggested, joining them at the table. "What are your parents' names, Memori? Maybe I've heard of them. I'm sure I've bought bread from your mother before."

"My mother is called Uchiha Moriyo, and my father is Uchiha Rinji," she replied shyly, staring at the floor as she addressed the older woman. "And also, thank you for letting me visit your house today, Sasuke's-honored-mother. It's very pretty."

"Thank you, dear," the woman said affectionately. "Yes, just as I thought, your mother is the woman I always buy bread from for my New Year's parties. She's very skilled. It's good of you to help her around the house."

"You should spend more time getting ready for the Academy, though. Maybe then I wouldn't have to explain what a kunai is to you." Sasuke cut in bluntly, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. "Mother, you wouldn't believe it-"

"Sasuke, that is rude! You should not say such things, especially to someone you've just met," his mother interrupted sternly. The boy didn't even blink.

"But mother, listen! When we were in my room earlier, I was showing Memori my battle weapons, and she didn't know what they were! Not even a kunai! And when I made her hold it, she was afraid of it! That's pretty bad, isn't it?" Sasuke asked, staring at her intently with his smooth, intense face. He was not laughing, but the young girl almost wished he would. His utter incredulity on his guest's behalf made her feel that maybe she was the one doing something wrong, for not knowing what a kunai was, for not having her own weapons cache tucked away in her bedroom. She said nothing. The rice began to boil, and Sasuke's mother swatted her son's head as she stood up to retrieve it.

"No, that's not bad, Sasuke, and it's not strange either. Many parents of young children in this day and age feel that they can afford to wait awhile before their children begin to practice with weapons. I know I've told you several times to slow down a bit, but your father always insists….well, anyway," she continued after a moment's pause, "if you were to go and interrogate every young child within this village, I think you would find that there are more children like Memori than like you in terms of weapons prowess. Education is what matters these days, as we look toward peace. If you weren't always off practicing fighting, maybe you would do better with your reading."

Memori did not know what prowess meant, but she exclaimed excitedly, "I can read! I read a book this thick about the solar system after my father showed me the planets in the telescope." She held her hands apart proudly as Sasuke's mother served them both dishes of rice drenched in sweet-smelling sauce. The woman looked at her little guest approvingly.

"See, Sasuke? Memori can read well, and you can fight well. One isn't better than the other. They're just different abilities."

Sasuke scowled at his rice. "Reading isn't going to save you when another Hyuuga raid happens. What are you going to do, read them a bedtime story and make them fall asleep?" Nevertheless, he offered his dish of extra mango slices to Memori, who liked mangoes very much.

At the moment when they were both beginning to dig their chopsticks into their rice bowls, the woven tatami screen slid back and another boy entered the house, barefoot and holding a knapsack to his side. This boy was unmistakably a child as well, but he was bigger than Sasuke. Instead of short, tufted hair, he had a black ponytail meandering down his back. He was dressed in dark clothes as well, and had strands of support bandages wrapped around both legs and his right arm. He could only be Sasuke's older brother, and it occurred to Memori that she did not know his name. He wandered gracefully into the kitchen and stopped at the table, registering the existence of an additional person around the finely carved block of wood. He looked at the little girl, and she at him, and at the same time they both bowed politely to each other. Sasuke's mother stood up again to fetch her older son a bowl, and he settled down onto the pouf on the opposite side of Memori, asking softly, "Mother, who is this?"

"This is Uchiha Memori, from the hill, Kuuki. She's Sasuke's new little friend. Her mother makes those breads loaves that we buy on New Year's, remember?"

"Hmmmm, I do," he replied in that same quiet tone. "It's a pleasure to have you in our house, Memori-san."

No one had ever called her Memori-san before. Memori did not know what to make of him, so she only smiled when he smiled first. His rice arrived in the next moment, and all three of the children bent over their meals. Sasuke's mother did not eat, but she presided cheerfully over the table, asking Memori the occasional question when she could squeeze one in between her younger son's barrage of curiosity. Memori answered happily, becoming more and more accustomed to Sasuke's insistent personality. The house no longer seemed nearly as scary when they did not have to whisper as if they were trying not to awaken some sort of sleeping beast. She thought of all that she would have to tell her parents about her brand-new friend and his family when she finally made it home tonight. Sasuke's brother said nothing, merely watching her occasionally. She still wanted to know what his name was, but she was too shy to ask him herself. She thought that he seemed quite different from Sasuke, solemn and reserved where his little brother was fiery and outspoken. She wondered how old he was.

Sasuke finished eating first, and waited impatiently for Memori to be done. "We're going outside," he announced as the last bite of rice was eaten. "Thanks for the food, mother!" Memori bowed to the woman as she rose, and then the raven-haired boy had grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the hallway. They passed by the screen doors that led to the yard, however, and she found herself back in Sasuke's room. A leather bag was shoved into her hands.

"What are we doing?" she asked.

"Taking some of the kunai with us, of course. I said that I'd show you the range." Normally, Memori would have piped in the she would be just fine playing kickball, or maybe exploring the second story of the house. However, Sasuke seemed so enthusiastic about the "range," whatever that was- and she really didn't think that the he would listen to her anyway- so she said nothing and held the leather bag open as he dumped several sharp, gleaming kunai inside. Memori held the bag warily away from her body as they walked back down the hall, not sure how permeable leather was against sharp blades. Sasuke turned back at the screen door and snorted, grabbing the bag out of his guest's reluctant hands and tucking it calmly against his side. "It's through here," he announced, and pushed open the door.

The yard of Sasuke's house was expansive and orderly, just like everything else about the place. The grass was trimmed, and rocks were piled in certain places near the edges. Along the walls grew assorted plants and trees, some of them fruit-bearing. On the right side of the yard was a small, stone-lined pond, inside which Memori could see several colorful fish flashing back and fourth through the water. A path of stepping stones led to the pond, and Sasuke started out following these, his bag of kunai clanking as the small girl followed him, staring around interestedly. It was the first time that she had ever been so deep inside the home of a town-dweller. They did not go to the pond, however, but veered off and drew up outside a wall of blackberry vines, the disorderly tangle seeming out of place within the yard. Memori couldn't imagine what they were doing, but as Sasuke pushed aside several strands of thorny blackberries, she saw that there was a human-sized gap in the wall. She began to feel quite happy about this, as if they were exploring a secret passageway. Sasuke grinned back at her and vanished into the gap, and she reached out after him and caught the tangle of vines, moving herself carefully through them. The light did not dim very much as she entered the stone, and a few moments later, she emerged on the other side of the wall, in a much more open area. It was not a forest, nor even a little wood, but there were a few trees dotting the flat, grassy scene. Each of the trees supported a disc-shaped slab with circular colors painted on it, a bulls-eye target. Memori had come across a scene like this once while playing with her friends on Kuuki, and mentioned it to her mother later at dinner that night. Her mother had told her that those types of ranges were for big people, and that she should stay away from them. Here, however, there were several targets mounted exactly low enough for someone as short as Sasuke to throw directly at the center. All of them were frayed and pockmarked from regular use. As Memori silently observed the range, he turned the leather bag upside down and rolled the kunai out, forming a gleaming heap on the ground. The excitement had returned to his eyes.

"All right; watch this!" he exclaimed, twirling one around in his fingers and making Memori squeak. "I told you, it's fine. The handle's not going to hurt me. Now watch!"

The dark-haired boy turned toward a target and bent his arm back, twisting his wrist so the short, straight blade was pointed up. He took a deep breath, and for a moment, he looked as solemn as the spirit statues that lined the path to Kuuki's temple. The next instant, he had straightened back up like a bow releasing, snapping his arm forward and throwing his hand out. The kunai flew straight out of his palm, going exactly in the direction that his fingers had been pointed when he'd let go. It sailed sleekly through the air, and landed with a strange-sounding _thock!_ in the second circle from the center. Sasuke gave a satisfied-sounding hum as he noted its place, turning back to Memori with his arms crossed. The girl was impressed with his movement, but unsure of what to say. "That was good," she murmured, nodding and trying to seem unperturbed. "You're fast. You have good aim."

"I can do it again," he told her happily, picking up another kunai and repeating the procedure. All five of the short blades that he threw made it into the second circle, at least; two landed in the bright red center. Sasuke dusted his hands off, looking very pleased with himself. Memori peered around in a shyly curious way.

"Do your father and brother train with you?" she asked, noting the higher-up targets. Sasuke nodded seriously.

"Those two are amazing. Everyone says so. They can use all kinds of weapons, and fight real people, not just do target practice. They're very busy mostly, but sometimes they have time for me. That's why I have to learn as much from them as possible when they're available. I want to be the best in my year when I get into the Academy, like they were!"

Memori nodded, understanding that much at least. The next moment, she jerked hurriedly away as Sasuke tossed a kunai at her, handle-first. The weapon fell into the dust, where it continued to gleam like a still thing in motion. The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes, stooping to pick it up again. "You're supposed to catch it. How many times do I have to tell you that the handle won't hurt you? It's your turn." He forced the metal weapon into Memori's hand and gripped her shoulders, turning her toward another low target. "Throw. Try it."

"Me? No way! I've never even held one before today!" she protested, backing away. A strange, fluttering feeling was crawling up her stomach and into her chest. She had held sharp things before- knives to cut the bread and peel the vegetables at home, hoes and spades to weed the garden, and needles to patch up her play-clothes. All of those, however, seemed to require much gentler and less dangerous motions than did this heavy, gleaming battle weapon. Holding it in her hand was one thing; lifting it over her head and uncurling her body to throw it at the target was quite another. What if she let go too soon? What if she held it wrong and stabbed herself in the back of the head as she tried to throw? What if, through some unexpected fluke of motion, it bounced off of the target and came flying back? The macabre possibilities seemed endless to her young mind as she tried to edge herself out of the proper aiming path. Sasuke, however, was persistent. He pulled her back in and gripped the kunai encouragingly in her hand.

"Come on, try it. Quit pushing! It's not dangerous, and even if you do get hit, it won't really hurt. Trust me, I've done it tons of times."

"My mother wouldn't want me-"

"You're from the Uchiha clan, aren't you? Your mother's not a shinobi, she doesn't understand. Just like my mother. No matter what she says, it _is_ bad that you've never thrown a kunai before. You can't grow up in this place and keep avoiding it, like you've been doing. Just do it once!"

"I _can't_ do it! I don't know _how!_" Memori wailed, stomping her foot in pure frustration and clenching her fist around the kunai's handle. Sasuke was undeterred.

"You've seen me do it, haven't you? Just try to do what I did. And even if you miss, I promise I won't laugh at all. It took me two weeks of trying to even hit the target! I don't want you to hit it on your first time, I just want you to throw the kunai."

"I don't believe you! You don't even know about the solar system!" Memori snapped, turning away from him. "I _will_ do it wrong, and something bad _will_ happen, and it _will_ hurt! Don't try to tell me any different!"

"Even if you brush yourself with the blade, it's not that bad! It doesn't hurt! You're just being scared!" the raven-haired boy insisted, exasperated. For a moment, the two children stood staring stubbornly at one another in the wide, empty range. When Memori did not budge, Sasuke sighed and bent down, palming the kunai which he'd first given to her to hold in his bedroom. "Look," he said, "I'll prove to you that it isn't that bad. You'll see that you're just being a baby!"

Memori thought that he was going to throw the kunai at the target again, and hastily stepped away. However, Sasuke stepped with her, and the next second she felt a dark, burning pain sliding down her left arm. She was too surprised to cry out. She dropped the kunai that she had been holding and grabbed onto the part of her arm in between the shoulder and the elbow, squeezing out blood from between her fingers. She gaped at Sasuke, tripped over her own shocked feet, and tumbled to the ground on her bottom, staring up at the boy's head as the sun behind him framed it in a ball of yellow fire.

Memori had been injured before, no doubt; she had cut herself in the kitchen plenty of times, had sustained innumerable skinned knees and raw elbows while playing in the woods with her friends, and when she had been very small, had even been knocked to the ground underneath a falling bread shelf in her mother's storage area. She was not unfamiliar with pain. However, this was the first time in her life that someone had intentionally hurt her, and it was the shock of this more than the pain or the blood that caused Memori to scramble away when Sasuke offered his hand to her. Her lip stuck out, and her eyes began to fill with tears. She had it halfway in her mind to run right out of that horrible place and back into the kitchen, where Sasuke's mother would no doubt be sympathetic and armed with bandages. The young boy seemed to know what was on her mind, for when she finally made it to her feet, he seized her good arm and prevented her from leaving. Memori hit at him with her bloody arm, but he knocked all of her punches to the side harmlessly.

"Come on! Stop acting like a two year old! I was just-"

"Leave me alone! Let go, I want to go home!"

"Baby!"

"Idiot!"

"You're so weak, you can't even fight! Come on, you can't even hit me once! This is pathetic!"

"Well, _you're_ a stupid-mean-_illiterate brute!_" Memori bellowed, accentuating each insult with attempted punches, which Sasuke easily parried one-handed. She did not actually know what an illiterate brute was, but she had heard her mother call a certain coarse deliveryman this name once, in a tone of voice which suggested that it was the ultimate insult. She had been saving it in her young mind for a special occasion.

Finally, the dark-haired boy swung her around away from the secret door, and glared at her indignantly. "What, are you going to run inside to mommy? Are you going to be a baby, after all?" he growled, shaking his tufts of hair out of his eyes aggressively. Memori was baffled by this behavior. All of her experience from the past told her that he ought to be the one acting remorseful right now, and she ought to yelling and carrying on about what her host had done. However, it was clear that Sasuke had not a speck of regret in him, and even more obvious that his disgust would be unequalled if his guest actually did run inside crying. All Memori could think was that she must not prove him right. Blinking the tears back into her eyes, the little girl glared defiantly at the boy and punched her bleeding arm into her hip.

"No," she said, "I'm not. I'm not a baby! But you should be sorry for what you did!"

"I didn't do it to be mean." Sasuke replied, in a slightly more placating voice. "I did it to take away your fear of being cut, so you could see that it's not all that bad. It's the same thing that my father did to me when I first started practicing. He said that a lot of times, being scared of something happening is a lot worse than having it actually happen. Your mind makes it worse than it is. Your father should have done this with you, too, but since he didn't, I did instead."

"It does hurt!" Memori exclaimed, still outraged. She made another move to storm away from him, but Sasuke blocked her way, his expression slightly more pleading as he held out his hands disarmingly.

"Of course it does, but are you dying? Is your arm in horrible pain? If it was in horrible pain, you wouldn't be talking to me right now. In a few days it will heal, and soon you'll forget that it even happened," he declared anxiously, pulling down his shirt to show her a spot of bare skin on his chest. "Look, this is where my father cut me, and do you see anything now? No."

Memori turned her head to examine the cut properly for the first time. It was long, stretching horizontally from one side of her arm to the other, but it was not very deep. Blood was still ebbing from the wound, forming an intricate latticework of red against her skin and dripping off her elbow. It did hurt, but no worse than the time when she'd been hit in this same arm by a falling piece of shale. Still unwilling to admit that it really wasn't so bad, she clutched her arm to her side and glared at Sasuke. "You could have warned me."

"You would have run. You were still afraid of it happening. But now you know that it's really not something to be afraid of, right?" Sasuke considered her, his dark eyes flashing back and fourth in concern. He seemed afraid that the small girl might still decide to run if he stepped away from her. Hesitantly, he took her by the shoulders and led her back to the spot facing the target. He pressed the kunai that he'd used to cut her into the hand of Memori's uninjured arm and finally stepped back expectantly. "Now you're ready. Throw it."

Memori's stomache churned at the sight of the gleaming metal weapon, all splattered with the rosy-red of her blood, even the handle. Despite this, for some reason she felt that now that she'd come this far, she didn't want to have spilled her blood for nothing. She was still a bit mad at Sasuke, and she knew that it was giving him exactly what he wanted, but….more to get rid of the bloody kunai than for any other reason, she whipped back her arm, twisted the straight blade in her clenched hand, and threw it wildly. She had no technique, like Sasuke, but nevertheless, her fingers must have pointed in the right direction just as she let go. The kunai sped through the air and attached itself with an identical _thock!_ to the very outermost ring of the target. Panting, she didn't really register what had happened until her companion began to cheer.

"Look at that! You hit it! I told you, I told you it'd be okay! You hit the target, Memori!"

Glad to have put the thing behind her at last, she gave Sasuke a half-smile and stared meaningfully back at the entrance to the range. Understanding, he rolled his eyes, still grinning. "Okay, okay, we'll go back now. We can explore the attic of my house. I'll let you look into our storage chests, okay? But first, help me gather up these kunai, we're not supposed to leave them out."

Less gingerly than before, the young girl lifted the remaining kunai that hadn't been thrown and dropped them back into the leather bag. She still refused to hold it, but as Sasuke slipped out ahead of her through the blackberry vines, Memori turned back to look at the weary target which they'd been using. In the corner of the very last circle, she could see the tiny black space which the tip of her weapon had punched in the wood. It had been way off-center, but still, she had hit the target. Placing a protective hand over her red-bordered cut, Memori ducked out of the range after Sasuke.

Sasuke brought it up several more times during the course of the visit, ("You hit the target! On your first time ever!") and by the time they had washed and bandaged the cut, put the kunai away, and thoroughly explored the uppermost level of his home, Memori was feeling a bit more forgiving toward her host. It was obvious that he was happy for her unexpected success, and as the afternoon passed into evening, the wound hurt less and less. She had almost forgotten that it was there until, after they had climbed down from the dusty attic and splashed water from the kitchen pump onto their faces, Sasuke retrieved the kunai from the his bedroom shelf, deftly washed the blood off of its gleaming surface, and held it out to Memori. "For you. It's a gift. To help you become an excellent shinobi. We can practice with them some more when you come back over here."

There were many things which she could have said at that moment, but in the end, she said nothing at all. She simply remembered Sasuke's admiration when she'd hit the target, and the strange, unfamiliar feeling of accomplishment which she'd known when she realized that after all, she _could _tolerate the pain of a battle scar. She took the kunai, feeling it weigh down her hand like before, and followed her host back to his bedroom. Together, the two of them hunted around his shelves until they'd found a leather pouch that was exactly the right size for the gleaming weapon. They tucked it in and tied it around Memori's waist, covering it with her shirt so that no one else could see. Around this time, Sasuke's mother wandered in and announced that it was probably time to send Memori home, as it was getting to be past the time when one should be walking around outside without a jacket. The young boy followed her to the elegant doors of his home, and the two children promised to meet each other the next day outside of the beadmaker's shop. Memori waved goodbye and began the uphill trudge to her own home, not really in the mood to run after the day that she'd had. The kunai pouch nudged against her hip with each step that she took, continually reminding her of its presence. She had half a mind to throw it into the river which flowed downhill past her, as she knew that she would have to lie to her mother in order to keep it. She rolled this possibility around in her mind for the entire journey, but in the end, she did not throw Sasuke's gift away. Later, she hid it underneath her bed mattress as soon as she made it into her room, and the only one who saw her do it was Shono, who would not remember anything of it even when he could talk.

On the road to Kuuki that evening, Memori was not sure how to feel about Sasuke, about his fervent belief that she must become a shinobi, or about her own memory of the _thocking _sound which the kunai had made when it drove its point into the target. She could not recall hearing any sound at all as the blade had sliced open her own skin. Pushing the scary thought away, her small fingers wormed their way under the base of her shirt to touch the cool leather pouch attached to her hip. Above her head, the stars were beginning to come out, and it took her longer than usual to notice them. When she did, however, Memori came to a standstill and gently watched the sky, millions of stars gleaming brighter than anything on earth ever could. The world around her was so dark that she felt like she was floating among the brilliant lights, weighed down only by the anchoring presence of the heavy, cold metal pressing against her skin. This distraction troubled her, and once again, she wondered whether she ought to throw the kunai away and continue on up the hill without it. If she tossed it in the river, though, Memori knew that she could never see her dark, fierce new friend again, for the first thing that Sasuke would probably ask upon meeting her tomorrow would be whether she wanted to practice with their kunai. She wondered if he would be sad if she decided to pretend that today's encounter had never happened. The warrior boy didn't seem to be much good at friendship, but he _had_ cleaned Memori's cut and shown her his mobile and given her his mangoes, which were her favorite. It made her uncomfortable to think of him sitting in his room, alone, except for the shelves full of harsh metal. She glanced back down again toward the village, unsure of where Sasuke's home would be located among the shadowy mass of glowing hearth fires. Defiantly, Memori stuck her lip out and tilted her smooth chin upwards.

"I still like the solar system better," she declared to the general section of the village that she'd come from. For a moment she imagined the spinning, painted, brilliant model hanging from Sasuke's ceiling, and wished that she could stretch out her fingers once more to touch it. Satisfied with her spontaneous announcement, Memori turned herself away from the village and continued her journey toward the upper ridge of the hill, the kunai pouch nudging gently against her hip, and fireflies gleaming like bits of stardust in the grasses on either side of her.

**Kuuki= air (fresh air.) A fitting name for the hill that Memori lives on.**

**Review and you will make my day! Tell me what you think of the story so far! :)**


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